Equipment Transitions

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


But where do you have it show up? Disband it in El Alamein and have its replacement show up in El Agheila? That doesn't work very well.

One would want to design the events properly. A TO "Withdraw 1. Panzer?". Perhaps a two turn delay- then the unit is disbanded. Perhaps six weeks later you get the unit back at base bright-eyed and bushy tailed with the new TO&E: whatever delay you feel is appropriate for everyone to return to base and get used to their new gear.

Obviously there's an abstraction here still- and there's scope for this to go wrong if 1. Panzer then charges off and is surrounded by enemy units when it's disbanded. However the player isn't going to want to risk the unit being eliminated and all the equipment going to "lost" instead of "on hand". To further reduce this risk you might want to include a Range on the event so the player doesn't know exactly when the unit will go.

I'd say it's still preferable to large scale in-unit equipment transitions as they stand. Of course I'm sure (without looking) that this is on the roadmap for development and both fudges will be replaced by a proper feature in due course.

So...1000 TOs? And that assumes the units are pulled out to be refitted (maybe 1000 miles away!), not just delivered new stuff and told to do their best with it.

[Simon Edmonds]

"You'd need a bigger map- can't fit in all Europe at 5km/hex on a 700x700 map....
Plus more slots in the OOB so you can build it out at battalion level."
I am working my way through creating a 5km map of Europe at the moment. (About 350k hexes in so far) The map goes from Iceland and Agadir(Morocco) in the West to Kostanay (Ussr), Tehran(Iraq) and Kuwait in the East. From above Tromso(Norway in the north to Luxor(Egypt in the south). To accomplish this I am using four scenario maps. Like Norm once said "way too much time on my hands". Hopefully one day, maybe TOAW 5 the scenario map will be big enough for it all to fit. It's a sort of "if you build it they will come" attitude.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

So...1000 TOs? And that assumes the units are pulled out to be refitted (maybe 1000 miles away!), not just delivered new stuff and told to do their best with it.

If you have 1,000 units which you want to individually handle transitions on then no, this isn't the solution for you.

An example of where this is used well is Fall Grau, which is 90 full-week turns long at division scale. The Axis player gets a TO for each of 9 (I think) panzerkorps. The TO actually removes the whole formation of four or five divisions (I know a corps doesn't have five divisions but this is besides the point) and then returns it after six weeks or something.

Anyway, if you're thinking of Campaign for North Africa I would expect this to be handled at the division level: I wouldn't want to withdraw a particular panzer regiment, but the whole division in one go. So that's one TO per division- and only for those divisions where the changed equipment is a major part of the TO&E, i.e. armour. I wouldn't expect you to use this mechanism to swap out e.g. a 37mm AT gun for a 50mm AT gun.

Like I said, neither approach is perfect- however for a major transition where the big line items in the unit need to get swapped out I think removing the unit entirely in this way produces a better result in the game than having the new equipment dribble in from replacements.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds

"You'd need a bigger map- can't fit in all Europe at 5km/hex on a 700x700 map....
Plus more slots in the OOB so you can build it out at battalion level."
I am working my way through creating a 5km map of Europe at the moment. (About 350k hexes in so far) The map goes from Iceland and Agadir(Morocco) in the West to Kostanay (Ussr), Tehran(Iraq) and Kuwait in the East. From above Tromso(Norway in the north to Luxor(Egypt in the south). To accomplish this I am using four scenario maps. Like Norm once said "way too much time on my hands". Hopefully one day, maybe TOAW 5 the scenario map will be big enough for it all to fit. It's a sort of "if you build it they will come" attitude.

I'd see such a map as more of a resource for pulling out local segments, particularly for a campaign of linked scenarios. The whole thing would be basically unplayable because, in the game, one doesn't have a large staff of officers to keep track of goings-on on minor fronts.

If you're being really rigorous about it- using Bob's latlong to plot out the locations of key points, being consistent about what you mean by "river", "hills", "light woods" etc. then it would be a great resource for other designers. However from experience even on a mid-sized map it's extremely hard to apply a consistent standard. One keeps wanting to make a slight bump into a hill simply because there's flat terrain all around.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Like I said, neither approach is perfect- however for a major transition where the big line items in the unit need to get swapped out I think removing the unit entirely in this way produces a better result in the game than having the new equipment dribble in from replacements.

+1

[Simon Edmonds]

Any thoughts on how terrain should be interpreted would be greatly appreciated. Before I started this particular project I had a hard and fast rule that over 300 meters and under 1000 meters would be considered hilly. Greater and more experienced minds than mine convinced me that wouldn't work for 10 and 5 km scales. Now I use a thing called "open topo map" https://opentopomap.org/#map=11/68.6169/27.6433 to see just how pronounced the hill is.

[Lobster]

On the west side of the Molochna River in Ukraine is a bluff. It's 40 to 60 meters high and about 70km long north to south. That doesn't sound like much of a height. But east of the Molochna River is a plain as flat as a billiard table. That low bluff, part of the Woton-Panther (or is it Panther-Wotan [:D]) fortified line, has a commanding view for several kilometers to the east. It was a hard nut for the Soviets to crack. So you can't really say a hill is any particular height without considering everything around a height.

Not everyone will interpret a map the same. Sometimes it depends on what a scenario designer is trying to accomplish. This probably sounds corny but a map is as much a work of art as it is part of a scenario. It's the canvas the scenario is painted on. It's only natural that everyone has their own style. So what someone says you should do may not be what you should do. That's the only advice I can give anyone.

Military heights:
1. Better view. You can see a greater distance and thus can see better what the enemy is doing.

2. Ballistics. You can shoot a lot farther if your bowmen, riflemen, cannons are up on a hill vs down in a valley. In fact, it is possible for the guys on the hill to fire stuff down onto those in the valley and the guys in the valley may not be able to shoot back and hit the guys on the hill.

3. Defense. For the enemy to attack you, they are going to have to charge up the hill. By the time they hit the top of the hill, they are very tired out. And as they come up, you can throw stuff down or just roll rocks down the hill. If you do decide to attack them, you get to go down hill and that is a whole lot less work than going up hill.

4. Secrecy. You can do stuff high up that the other side can not see. But if you are down in the valley, the other guy can pretty much see what you are doing.

5. Weather. When was the last time you ever heard of a hill top being flooded out? Tanks and artillery on top of a hill can move without a lot of worry about mud. Down in the valley where the water runs, you may have your entire unit flooded and your tanks totally bogged down.

6. Sun. No matter where the sun is, the guys on the hill are looking down at the valley and enemy. Whereas the guys down in the valley sometimes are looking up into the sun trying to see what you are doing. Nothing ruins your vision faster than looking into the sun. In fact, the guys on the hill could use the sun to their advantage, such as attacking the enemy in the valley with the sun at their back.

[cathar1244]

Any thoughts on how terrain should be interpreted would be greatly appreciated.

As you've no doubt grasped, at times it is more art than science.

Suggestion: Do all of the obvious hexes first -- clearly mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. Water is important because it shows the lay of the lower ground (rivers shouldn't flow from low ground through hills to low ground again unless there is a chasm of some kind, etc.)

Some of the elevated areas may be better represented by an escarpment hexside than a hills tile -- like the sudden rise of elevation in some areas of the Baltic coastline.

Consider repurposing terrain like crops, light woods, and rocky to terrain more useful for your scale -- stuff like the old paper wargames called "broken" or "mixed". Check the terrain effects of the repurposed terrain to be sure it matches your intent. Likewise, jungle tiles can serve as trackless primitive forest in the European setting.

Use one primary tile for each hex; keep it simple. In other words, you don't need "forested mountains". Make it a mountain hex and call it done.

Once the obvious tiles are finished then make the judgment calls on things like hills and escarpments. If you have repurposed some of the other tiles, you may be able to use them for localized areas of elevation ("broken") instead of a hills tile. Besides elevation, what might distinguish hills and mountains is how many options the terrain offers for maneuver. Mountains are typically very channelized for vehicular movement, while hills are more navigable.

Cheers

[Simon Edmonds]

Question. In Toaw the hexmap is a mosaic of hexes with each hex having its own terrain code. Do the hexsides have their own code too? Such as for a border?

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds
Question. In Toaw the hexmap is a mosaic of hexes with each hex having its own terrain code. Do the hexsides have their own code too? Such as for a border?

Hi Simon! I don't know the answer to your question, but there is a thread which serves as the knowledge base (such as it is) for TOAW XML map data:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4576819

Might be best to look there...

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds

Question. In Toaw the hexmap is a mosaic of hexes with each hex having its own terrain code. Do the hexsides have their own code too? Such as for a border?

It would seem so. Escarpment hex sides would require knowing which hex side the escarpment was on.

[Lobster]

I've always found the portion I've put in bold interesting and been curious about.

</FORCEVARIABLES>
<VARIABLES scenarioIsOver="0" ceaseFire="0" eventEngineVariable="0" riversAlongEdges="0" attritionDivider="10" maxRoundsPerBattle="99" AAALethalityRate="100" engineeringRate="100" hexConversionRate="100" entrenchmentRate="100" combatDensityRate="100" supplyMovementRate="100" supplyReadinessRate="100" roadCost="1" navalAttritionDivider="10" newMudRulesScalar="100" />
<MAP version="100" offsetx="0" offsety="0" minx="0" miny="0" maxx="44" maxy="43">
<CELL loc="0,0" b="/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/16/0/48/0/12/0/0/0/0/0" />
<CELL loc="0,1" b="/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/16/0/48/0/12/0/0/0/0/0" />

I've never tried giving it a value of 1.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
I've always found the portion I've put in bold interesting and been curious about.

I did. Weird things happened with the game graphics; not surprising since the game doesn't have any graphics for hexside rivers. I didn't play things out to see how/if movement/combat were affected.

[Simon Edmonds]

Ok. So what do the values 16/0/48/0/12/etc mean? I assume that the value rivers along hexsides means that there are currently no rivers along hexsides. It is the data attached to the cell loc that is interesting. I would be interesting to see what each of the values represent.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds
Ok. So what do the values 16/0/48/0/12/etc mean? I assume that the value rivers along hexsides means that there are currently no rivers along hexsides. It is the data attached to the cell loc that is interesting. I would be interesting to see what each of the values represent.

See the thread I linked to for this kind of info, at least as much as is known. Lots of blanks to be filled in still.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Simon Edmonds

Any thoughts on how terrain should be interpreted would be greatly appreciated. Before I started this particular project I had a hard and fast rule that over 300 meters and under 1000 meters would be considered hilly. Greater and more experienced minds than mine convinced me that wouldn't work for 10 and 5 km scales. Now I use a thing called "open topo map" https://opentopomap.org/#map=11/68.6169/27.6433 to see just how pronounced the hill is.

A hill has nothing to do with elevation. It's about how rugged the terrain is. There's a lot of the world which is at very high altitude but very flat. Sorry this does make mapping dramatically more complicated- but it's a fact.

When I was doing a major mapping project, I set thresholds for:
- streamflow in cubic feet per second (the data was in this unit) for what's a "river" or a "super river". At your scale this might be something like 500 and 5,000, but go with something that "feels" right for a certain case and then apply it across the board. Deep canyons which contain very little water can instead be wadis or escarpments (a ferry unit won't help you cross the grand canyon)
- minimum population for "urban" or "dense urban". At your scale you'd want about 5,000 for urban and 10 or 20,000 for dense urban

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I did. Weird things happened with the game graphics; not surprising since the game doesn't have any graphics for hexside rivers. I didn't play things out to see how/if movement/combat were affected.

I believe hexside rivers was tried and dropped as a possible feature at some point in the past. I have a vague memory of seeing a dev screenshot with hexside rivers, but this might be my memory playing tricks.

[Lobster]

A hill has everything to do with elevation. The Atacama Plateau is between 11k and 13k feet high but is flat. Except for the hills and mountains on it. Parts of the mountains in the Crimean Peninsula are flat also. There are hills on those flat parts too. So I really don't understand what you mean when you say hills have nothing to do with elevation. [&:]

It can be perplexing sometimes to figure out how to portray some terrains that could be hills or could be ravines. Lots of that in the former Soviet Union.

[Simon Edmonds]

Hi 76mm. Had look at that thread you recommended. Very informative. Big thanks to you and Cathar. I cringe at the thought of some of the suggestions I have made without understanding the limitations of the system.
First Rivers on hexsides. My immediate thought reading the thread was "we can use Field 47 as a hexside river" But then what would we use for major rivers, canals and so on. Yeah you could use the earlier water course Fields to generate the picture on hexes; but this stuffs up all of the previous scenarios. Not an option! You could have multiple values for a single terrain field. You could have multiple values for a number of terrain fields to get that overlay effect that Toaw does so well. Field 1 for terrain base. ie. Default, Sea, Arid, Swamp, Rocky etc. Field 2 for terrain type hills, mountains, etc. Field 3 for terrain coverage, Forest, Woods, intermittent lakes etc. Field 4 for artificial improvements. Then you could have multiple values for multiple sets of hexsides. One set for coast and rivers. One set for water courses. One for roads. One for rail. (this gives you different gauges, weight limits and number of tracks like that other mob has. And one for borders. But this would take a Toaw 5 level of change and require modifications to every scenario as per Toaw 4. Way too big an ask at this point in time.
The only way I can see the change being done is to add on extra terrain Fields at the end. (49 to 58). Maybe more... So that there isn't any requirement for major program changes you can do a graphics mod for the existing watercourse graphics so that it doesn't show the river. Place one of these hexes on either side of the river. Then you have one field to show the watercourse and another to render the effects. That way this wont effect any scenarios already in existence. Note that this will probably only work for scales up to 10km.
Just a thought.

[76mm]

I'm not holding my breath for any changes to terrain or map stuff, that's for sure. If you really want to try hexside rivers, here's an idea: repurpose escarpments as rivers. If you changed the graphics, this would almost work, except for the observation and combat effects of escarpments (which differ from rivers in limited but significant ways, such as mountain troops have an advantage, etc).

Now that I think about it, it sure seems like it would be easy for the devs to add hexside rivers for use with new scenarios, just by tweaking the escarpment rules and providing new graphics. Actually, given that there is that "hexside river" switch in the existing XML, I wouldn't be surprised it it were all done but the graphics. I propose that some brave (and bored) soul start tinkering with the map XML to see what they come up with!